


One Phone Call

by TakingOverMidnight3482



Series: Julie and the Phantoms One-Shots: Ghostly Mishaps [16]
Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: Alex is the Brain Cell of the group, Based on a Tumblr Post, But I made it angstier, Canon Divergent, Gen, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Mentions of Blood, Pre-Canon, but i've adopted the hc that Reggie is good at math, there is a fair bit of cursing tho just fyi, there's one explicit slur in reference to the gay community as well, these tags make it sound darker than it is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-11
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:54:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27511876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TakingOverMidnight3482/pseuds/TakingOverMidnight3482
Summary: “Phone call for you. It’s Reginald.”“Oh, perfect,” Alex said, perking up and grabbing his work book to take to the phone with him. “I need to ask him a math question.”His father handed over the phone and returned to the evening news, and Alex leaned against the wall, tucking the phone between his ear and his shoulder and twirling the pencil in his fingers while he stared at his book. “Reg, hey. I’m glad you called, I needed-”“Me and Luke are in jail.”
Relationships: Alex & Luke Patterson & Reggie (Julie and The Phantoms)
Series: Julie and the Phantoms One-Shots: Ghostly Mishaps [16]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1925116
Comments: 33
Kudos: 622





	One Phone Call

**Author's Note:**

> Based on a tumblr post from incorrect-jatp-quotes. 
> 
> Me, at one am last night, kinda tipsy: "Lol this is funny imma write it"  
> Me, thirty minutes later and 1,000 words in: "But what if I make him CRY?"
> 
> I know op of that post mentioned Bobby, but I'm not confident enough to write for Bobby, especially at one in the morning when I SHOULD have been sleeping, so he's on vacation in this lol. No Bobby hate tho - we hoping for a redemption up in here.

“So,” Reggie said, staring at the floor under his clasped hands and jittering his knee at a thousand miles per second. “Who should we call?”

Luke leaned his head against the bars of the jail cell they were currently locked in and sighed, his grip on the bars tight. “I’d say Alex, but frankly I feel safer in this cell.”

Reggie pressed his hands to his forehead and dragged his fingers back through his hair, his nails scratching at his scalp. He blew a raspberry. “Well Bobby’s out. He’s on vacation until Monday. And my parents probably aren’t the best plan.”

Luke frowned, turning around and leaning against the cell so that he was looking at Reggie. “My parents are definitely out. They’d pull me from the band for sure if they found out I went to jail.”

“To be fair, that wasn’t technically the bands fault,” Reggie pointed out. “That asshole punched you first.”

Luke frowned, lifting a hand to rub at his busted lip. Reggie tilted his head. “It still hurt?”

“Burns a little,” Luke admitted, before glancing back at the booking officer, who was waiting for them to decide on their phone call. She was clearly bored, if the mystery novel she was reading was any indication. “But it’ll be fine.”

Reggie sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “It has to be Alex, dude.”

“I know,” Luke said quietly, gripping the bars of the cell again and banging his forehead lightly against them. “I know.”

Luke was only aware that Reggie was moving because the metal on his jacket rattled as he stood. A hand settled in the middle of his back and Luke relaxed into the touch. “He’s gonna be pissed, dude.”

“Nah,” Reggie said, his voice hiding a laugh. “I mean, maybe at first. But he’ll be chill. Chiller than your parents, anyway.”

Luke wrinkled his nose. “Good point. Officer?”

~~

“Alex?” his father called from the living room.

Alex looked up from the dining room table, where he was gnawing on the end of a pencil and going over some tricky math homework. He was already planning on asking Reggie about it on Monday before class. “Yes sir?”

“Phone call for you. It’s Reginald.”

“Oh, perfect,” Alex said, perking up and grabbing his work book to take to the phone with him. “I need to ask him a math question.”

His father handed over the phone and returned to the evening news, and Alex leaned against the wall, tucking the phone between his ear and his shoulder and twirling the pencil in his fingers while he stared at his book. “Reg, hey. I’m glad you called, I needed-”

“Me and Luke are in jail.”

The pencil stumbled on the circle and clattered to the floor, Alex’s jaw not far behind it as he fumbled the book in a valiant effort to keep it from falling. “What?” he demanded, before remembering his parents were literally ten feet away. He gave his father a reassuring smile and then turned away, gripping the phone tighter. “The fuck do you _mean_ , you’re in jail?” he hissed.

Reggie was silent for a moment, and Alex almost panicked, thinking he’d lost him. “Um. We got arrested at this place called Tony’s Bar. Luke got in a fight, and I was trying to help break it up, but kinda got caught in the middle so like…can you come bail us out?”

Alex shut his eyes, taking a deep breath. He’d be pissed, except Reggie sounded truly apologetic. And it wasn’t like either of his friends to get into a pointless brawl – that was Bobby’s thing. There was more to the story, he was sure. “Don’t you need to be like, 18 to bail someone out?”

Silence, and then hushed conversation, and then Reggie answered. “The officer says not for this case. We’re not being charged, someone just has to sign us out.”

Alex clenched his jaw and took a deep breath. “Yeah. I’ll be there soon.”

“Thanks, man.”

“You guys owe me so hard.”

He hung up the phone and shut his math book, turning to his parents and raising his voice back to a normal volume. “Reggie needs me right now, can I take the car?”

His mother set down her crossword puzzle with a concerned frown. “Is he all right, sweetheart?”

Alex offered her a small smile. “Yeah, he’s okay. Parents aren’t doing great right now, he just needs someone to pick him up and take him on a drive. An hour or two?”

His father nodded. “That’s fine. It’s not a school night, after all. Home by 11, mm?”

Alex nodded. “Yes sir, thank you.”

He grabbed his sweatshirt and his father’s keys off the hook by the door, let the screen door swing shut loudly behind him, and slid behind the wheel of the car. “I’m gonna kill them,” he muttered, shoving the key into the ignition.

~~

“Two days before my birthday,” Alex said as they all climbed back into the car. “TWO days…before my 17th birthday. Really, guys?”

Luke and Reggie at least had the audacity to look apologetic. “We obviously weren’t _trying_ to get arrested, dude,” Luke said, climbing into the back seat and letting Reggie take the front. “The other guy swung first.”

Alex rested his forehead against the steering wheel. “Okay, but you didn’t have to swing _back_. Why’d he even punch you?”

Silence, and Alex turned his head to stare at his two best friends, lifting an eyebrow. Reggie was backwards in his seat, having what looked like a silent conversation with Luke. When he glanced back, his frown was twisted. “Luke called him a piece of shit.”

Alex sat up slowly, turning in the seat and dragging his knee up so he could look at both of them properly. “And why the fuck would you do that?”

Luke was staring at the floor of the car, his hands tight in his lap. Alex studied him, and then looked at Reggie, who was spinning his ring on his finger rapidly. His foot was moving so fast it was a blur. He was closest, so Alex reached out a hand, set it over his knuckles gently. “Guys,” he said, waiting for Reggie to look up at him and shifting his voice so that he didn’t sound as upset. “I’m not mad. Just confused. You guys don’t fight. And Luke, you sure as hell don’t insult people without a reason. Where were you? Who was this asshole?”

“Reg and I were checking out this club to play next weekend,” Luke offered up. “16 plus, so we’d be legally allowed in, even if we couldn’t drink or shit. Owner seems chill, so we were waiting to fill out paperwork. We were gonna call you after, surprise you as like…a birthday thing.”

Reggie picked up the story. “Guy Luke hit was a waiter. Uh…he’s heard of us.”

Alex shook his head, confused. “So? What, is he not a fan? Not everyone is going to be.”

Luke pursed his lips tightly. “No, not a fan. Which is whatever, even though our music is fucking _good_. Was calling us names, though.”

Alex shrugged, still baffled. “So fuck him, whatever. So one guy there doesn’t like us, clearly the owner was impressed or he wouldn’t have given you guys shit to fill out.”

“He was calling _you_ names,” Reggie said softly.

Alex whipped his head around to stare at the bassist, lips parting, eyebrows furrowing. “What?”

Reggie’s swallow was audible, and when he looked up, Alex was floored at the look of ferocity in his eyes. “He was calling you names. Like…really shitty ones. He’s in the grade above us.”

“I don’t understand, what-”

“He started the rumors that you were gay,” Luke said, lifting his eyes. His jaw was tight. “This past fall, before you told us.”

Alex remembered that semester well – the word “fag” scrawled on his locker almost every day, the nasty notes, the way that guys avoided him in the locker room during gym class. It took him actively making out with a girl and purposefully getting caught under the bleachers during a game for the rumors to fade into obscurity. He’d told his bandmates two weeks later, after he’d “broken up” with his “girlfriend” (a theater girl who was trying to quell her own gay rumors, which she’d confided in Alex were also true).

They’d been supportive, all three of them, and they’d kept quiet. They’d been his biggest supporters, and it had been a relief to tell them all the truth.

To discover that, despite his best efforts, the assholes on top were still not convinced? Made his chest tighten considerably, his breath catch in his throat, at the potential of having to go through it all again.

“Told us he wouldn’t have a group of…” Reggie spread his hands, the word falling unspoken in the car. “Playing at his place of work. So we told him to fuck himself, we didn’t want to play for his shit hole job if that was how he was going to act. When we were leaving, Luke called him a piece of shit. And…”

He trailed off, still staring at his hands. Alex could only look between the two of them with his lips parted and his eyes wide. “You decked a guy and ruined a gig spot? For _me_?”

Luke scoffed at the same time that Reggie snorted. “Duh,” Luke muttered, finally looking up at Alex in full, his face illuminated now by the parking lot lights. His smile was halfhearted. “Not gonna put up with that shit.”

Alex finally spotted his busted, bloody, lip, and he immediately twisted to lift Reggie’s chin with a careful finger, turning his head just a little to catch the bruise on his jaw that was deliberately being hidden by the upraised collar of his jacket. “Guys,” he whispered, and suddenly there were tears clouding his vision. “ _No,_ ” he choked.

Reggie moved his hand, keeping their fingers loosely tangled. “We’ll find other gig spots,” he said with a shrug. “No big deal.”

Alex stared at him and then turned to stare at Luke, who was nodding. Alex reached out, caught Luke’s hand tightly. “No,” he said again, more firmly. “You’re not allowed to get hurt because of me. Okay, you assholes?”

Luke rolled his eyes. “We’re not getting hurt because of you, Alex,” he said, running a thumb in untraceable patterns over the back of Alex’s hand. “We got hurt cause some dickhead was being a jerk.”

“Yeah, you just happened to be the subject of his jerkiness,” Reggie said with a shrug. “I’d do it again.”

“Same,” Luke said.

Fuck.

The tears spilled over, the ones Alex had been struggling to hold in, and both of his friends straightened up at the sight of them. “You guys _suck_ ,” he whispered, dragging both of their hands towards him and leaning his forehead against their knuckles.

“So you’re not mad at us for being in jail?” Luke asked, his voice light and teasing again.

“Oh I’m _pissed._ Bobby is never going to let you guys live this down, you know.”

“Who says we have to tell him?” Luke joked.

Alex shot him what he hoped was a withering look. “I’m telling him, you assholes.”

He could hear the laugh in Reggie’s voice as he turned to finally buckle his seatbelt and start the car. “Love you too, man.”

Alex couldn’t help but smile as he pulled out of the parking lot.

**Author's Note:**

> If it's not clear, Alex is not yet out to his parents, therefore there is no animosity between them. This also doesn't fall in line with any of the other stories in this series (as of right now lol)


End file.
